Summary

Presented in "long-screen" for your viewing distortment!

The Good

It comes with the Capcom ProPad 6 controller, one of the finest controllers made for the PC (get a USB adapter and keep using this controller today, works with MAME like a charm), and if it wasn't for that controller and having an extra original GravisPad on hand, then I guess my friends would've been let out in the cold! That controller, which this game and Mega Man X were especially designed for, really makes for a great game. All of the digitized speech and excellent backgrounds are here, too, along with the speed (depending on which x86 CPU you are using). The game is one CD, but downloads to your hard disk so there isn't any access time between scenes, and the Vs. and taunt screens are all hear. The graphics look really good on a crystal clear monitor (use any monitor made since 1993, I suppose). Everybody's moves are intact, but no Akuma. More of a straight port of the NES version.

The Bad

No Windows *.PIF file, so can only be accessed through DOS. Even on Pentium II or higher, this game is programmed as such to exploit DOS through tricks and eats resources like Pac-Man with dots. When played on a modern PC using the Command Prompt, sound is either conflicting with the program or is gone altogether. Strange, huh? Speaking of which, I don't know if Capcom was nutty or lazy, but on either an AdLib Gold or a SoundBlaster (2.0, 16, 32AWE, and finally, 64AWE) the music is terrible. It's worse than either the Game Boy or Master System versions. It makes the Game Boy Advance version sound like a John Williams muscial score compared to this extremely simple MIDI samples. Rumor has it that if a Roland MT-32 music card is used, then the game sounds arcade perfection. Nice rumor, but I don't have any knowledge or way or means to get a Roland MT-32 card, especially in the Mid-'90s, when that was around at the stores. It is an expensive music card, according to Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe, and was killed by the Macintosh. I heard this rumor applies to Mortal Kombat for DOS, also. Again, these are rumors. Using just the normal sound cards a person would have (i.e. SoundBlaster), the music is just terrible. Then there's the graphics. The backgrounds, screens, scenes, and colors are all just ported over from the SNES, but with that "beefing-up" EGM's Review Crew said needed to be done to that version of the game. Okay, so Capcom listened. Since DOS doesn't do sprites (ask the id Software guys about the tricks used in Commander Keen, or the Probe guys about the tricks used in Mortal Kombat) Capcom when right on ahead and did sprites. How? I don't know. It flows smoothly (they'd do this again for both Super Street Fighter II Turbo and X-Men: Children of the Atom in 1994 and 1995, which seem to be better games graphically) but the characters are really, really skinny and long, and detail is a bit drab. Why? I don't know. I mean, it's ported by the same great people who did the SNES and Genesis versions, so why in the world are the characters skinny? Strangely, it's something to get used to, and it's something that doesn't affect gameplay. Also, don't play this game with the keyboard, or a flight stick, or any other weird joystick. Use at least a GravisPad.

The Bottom Line

Do you have money? Then go buy this on the SNES or Genesis, or one of the collections for Saturn or PlayStation, or the Game Boy Advance version. Don't want to buy a console (some PC users are like that, don't blame 'em, I prefer all my stuff on one system, too), then find and configure the version after this from Gametek. It's better. I don't recommend this game other than to get ahold of the Capcom ProPad 6 controller. And that's about it.